The United Kingdom (UK) is often a 'first choice' country for many immigrants and 26.5% of births in the UK are to foreign born women. We have a lot of evidence of showing that immigrant women receive poor maternity care and have higher maternal and infant death rates.

This study, led by Professor Gina Higginbottom and funded by NIHR HS&DR programme, employs a narrative synthesis (NS) approach. This means we will identify and integrate findings from all types of research evidence, examining access and interventions that improve maternity care for immigrant women. We will review all forms of research evidence.

NS enables us to take a comprehensive approach to understanding the wide range of factors which impact upon access to maternity care for immigrant women and identify which interventions provide the best quality of care.

Service enhancement and delivery

This integrated evidence will enable us to make recommendations about the development and organisation of maternity care services and interventions. Narrative Synthesis:

• Facilitates understanding and acknowledges the broader influences of theoretical and contextual variables, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and geographical location
• Enables understanding of the shaping of differences between reported outcomes as a result of differing study designs and childbearing populations
• Provides results that enable the development and implementation of maternity services and interventions.